Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  These Societies conferred, it need hardly be said, no less real benefits on the public at large. They extended the sale of Mr. Browning’s works, and with it their distinct influence for intellectual and moral good. They not only created in many minds an interest in these works, but aroused the interest where it was latent, and gave it expression where it had hitherto found no voice. One fault, alone, could be charged against them; and this lay partly in the nature of all friendly concerted action: they stirred a spirit of enthusiasm in which it was not easy, under conditions equally genuine, to distinguish the individual element from that which was due to contagion; while the presence among us of the still living poet often infused into that enthusiasm a vaguely emotional element, which otherwise detracted from its intellectual worth. But in so far as this was a drawback to the intended action of the Societies, it was one only in the most negative sense; nor can we doubt, that, to a certain extent, Mr. Browning’s best influence was promoted by it. The hysterical sensibilities which, for some years past, he had unconsciously but not unfrequently aroused in the minds of women, and even of men, were a morbid development of that influence, which its open and systematic extension tended rather to diminish than to increase.

  It is also a matter of history that Robert Browning had many deep and constant admirers in England, and still more in America,* long before this organized interest had developed itself. Letters received from often remote parts of the United States had been for many years a detail of his daily experience; and even when they consisted of the request for an autograph, an application to print selections from his works, or a mere expression of schoolboy pertness or schoolgirl sentimentality, they bore witness to his wide reputation in that country, and the high esteem in which he was held there.** The names of Levi and Celia Thaxter of Boston had long, I believe, been conspicuous in the higher ranks of his disciples, though they first occur in his correspondence at about this date. I trust I may take for granted Mrs. Thaxter’s permission to publish a letter from her.

  * The cheapening of his works in America, induced by the

  absence of international copyright, accounts of course in

  some degree for their wider diffusion, and hence earlier

  appreciation there.

  ** One of the most curious proofs of this was the

  Californian Railway time-table edition of his poems.

  Newtonville, Massachusetts: March 14, 1880.

  My dear Mr. Browning:

  Your note reached me this morning, but it belonged to my husband, for it was he who wrote to you; so I gave it to him, glad to put into his hands so precious a piece of manuscript, for he has for you and all your work an enthusiastic appreciation such as is seldom found on this planet: it is not possible that the admiration of one mortal for another can exceed his feeling for you. You might have written for him,

  I’ve a friend over the sea,

  . . . .

  It all grew out of the books I write, &c.

  You should see his fine wrath and scorn for the idiocy that doesn’t at once comprehend you!

  He knows every word you have ever written; long ago ‘Sordello’ was an open book to him from title-page to closing line, and all you have printed since has been as eagerly and studiously devoured. He reads you aloud (and his reading is a fine art) to crowds of astonished people, he swears by you, he thinks no one save Shakspere has a right to be mentioned in the same century with you. You are the great enthusiasm of his life.

  Pardon me, you are smiling, I dare say. You hear any amount of such things, doubtless. But a genuine living appreciation is always worth having in this old world, it is like a strong fresh breeze from off the brine, that puts a sense of life and power into a man. You cannot be the worse for it. Yours very sincerely, Celia Thaxter.

  When Mr. Thaxter died, in February 1885, his son wrote to Mr. Browning to beg of him a few lines to be inscribed on his father’s tombstone. The little poem by which the request was answered has not yet, I believe, been published.

  ‘Written to be inscribed on the gravestone of Levi Thaxter.’

  Thou, whom these eyes saw never, — say friends true Who say my soul, helped onward by my song, Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too? I gave but of the little that I knew: How were the gift requited, while along Life’s path I pace, could’st thou make weakness strong, Help me with knowledge — for Life’s old, Death’s new! R. B. April 19, ‘85.

  A publication which connected itself with the labours of the Society, without being directly inspired by it, was the annotated ‘Strafford’ prepared by Miss Hickey for the use of students. It may be agreeable to those who use the little work to know the estimate in which Mr. Browning held it. He wrote as follows:

  19, Warwick Crescent, W.: February 15, 1884.

  Dear Miss Hickey, — I have returned the Proofs by post, — nothing can be better than your notes — and with a real wish to be of use, I read them carefully that I might detect never so tiny a fault, — but I found none — unless (to show you how minutely I searched,) it should be one that by ‘thriving in your contempt,’ I meant simply ‘while you despise them, and for all that, they thrive and are powerful to do you harm.’ The idiom you prefer — quite an authorized one — comes to much the same thing after all.

  You must know how much I grieve at your illness — temporary as I will trust it to be — I feel all your goodness to me — or whatever in my books may be taken for me — well, I wish you knew how thoroughly I feel it — and how truly I am and shall ever be Yours affectionately, Robert Browning.

  From the time of the foundation of the New Shakspere Society, Mr. Browning was its president. In 1880 he became a member of the Wordsworth Society. Two interesting letters to Professor Knight, dated respectively 1880 and 1887, connect themselves with the working of the latter; and, in spite of their distance in time, may therefore be given together. The poem which formed the subject of the first was ‘The Daisy’;* the selection referred to in the second was that made in 1888 by Professor Knight for the Wordsworth Society, with the co-operation of Mr. Browning and other eminent literary men.

  * That beginning ‘In youth from rock to rock, I went.’

  19, Warwick Crescent, W.: July 9, ‘80.

  My dear Sir, — You pay me a compliment in caring for my opinion — but, such as it is, a very decided one it must be. On every account, your method of giving the original text, and subjoining in a note the variations, each with its proper date, is incontestably preferable to any other. It would be so, if the variations were even improvements — there would be pleasure as well as profit in seeing what was good grow visibly better. But — to confine ourselves to the single ‘proof’ you have sent me — in every case the change is sadly for the worse: I am quite troubled by such spoilings of passage after passage as I should have chuckled at had I chanced upon them in some copy pencil-marked with corrections by Jeffrey or Gifford: indeed, they are nearly as wretched as the touchings-up of the ‘Siege of Corinth’ by the latter. If ever diabolic agency was caught at tricks with ‘apostolic’ achievement (see page 9) — and ‘apostolic’, with no ‘profanity’ at all, I esteem these poems to be — surely you may bid it ‘aroint’ ‘about and all about’ these desecrated stanzas — each of which, however, thanks to your piety, we may hail, I trust, with a hearty

  Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain

  Nor be less dear to future men

  Than in old time!

  Believe me, my dear Sir, Yours very sincerely, Robert Browning.

  19, Warwick Crescent, W.: March 23, ‘87.

  Dear Professor Knight, — I have seemed to neglect your commission shamefully enough: but I confess to a sort of repugnance to classifying the poems as even good and less good: because in my heart I fear I should do it almost chronologically — so immeasureably superior seem to me the ‘first sprightly runnings’. Your selection would appear to be excellent; and the partial admittance of the later work prevents one from observing the too definitely distin
guishing black line between supremely good and — well, what is fairly tolerable — from Wordsworth, always understand! I have marked a few of the early poems, not included in your list — I could do no other when my conscience tells me that I never can be tired of loving them: while, with the best will in the world, I could never do more than try hard to like them.*

  * By ‘them’ Mr. Browning clearly means the later poems, and

  probably has omitted a few words which would have shown

  this.

  You see, I go wholly upon my individual likings and distastes: that other considerations should have their weight with other people is natural and inevitable. Ever truly yours, Robert Browning.

  Many thanks for the volume just received — that with the correspondence. I hope that you restore the swan simile so ruthlessly cut away from ‘Dion’.

  In 1884 he was again invited, and again declined, to stand for the Lord Rectorship of the University of St. Andrews. In the same year he received the LL.D. degree of the University of Edinburgh; and in the following was made Honorary President of the Associated Societies of that city.* During the few days spent there on the occasion of his investiture, he was the guest of Professor Masson, whose solicitous kindness to him is still warmly remembered in the family.

  * This Association was instituted in 1833, and is a union of

  literary and debating societies. It is at present composed

  of five: the Dialectic, Scots Law, Diagnostic,

  Philosophical, and Philomathic.

  The interest in Mr. Browning as a poet is beginning to spread in Germany. There is room for wonder that it should not have done so before, though the affinities of his genius are rather with the older than with the more modern German mind. It is much more remarkable that, many years ago, his work had already a sympathetic exponent in Italy. Signor Nencioni, Professor of Literature in Florence, had made his acquaintance at Siena, and was possibly first attracted to him through his wife, although I never heard that it was so. He was soon, however, fascinated by Mr. Browning’s poetry, and made it an object of serious study; he largely quoted from, and wrote on it, in the Roman paper ‘Fanfulla della Domenica’, in 1881 and 1882; and published last winter what is, I am told, an excellent article on the same subject, in the ‘Nuova Antologia’. Two years ago he travelled from Rome to Venice (accompanied by Signor Placci), for the purpose of seeing him. He is fond of reciting passages from the works, and has even made attempts at translation: though he understands them too well not to pronounce them, what they are for every Latin language, untranslatable.

  In 1883 Mr. Browning added another link to the ‘golden’ chain of verse which united England and Italy. A statue of Goldoni was about to be erected in Venice. The ceremonies of the occasion were to include the appearance of a volume — or album — of appropriate poems; and Cavaliere Molmenti, its intending editor, a leading member of the ‘Erection Committee’, begged Mr. Browning to contribute to it. It was also desired that he should be present at the unveiling.* He was unable to grant this request, but consented to write a poem. This sonnet to Goldoni also deserves to be more widely known, both for itself and for the manner of its production. Mr. Browning had forgotten, or not understood, how soon the promise concerning it must be fulfilled, and it was actually scribbled off while a messenger, sent by Signor Molmenti, waited for it.

  * It was, I think, during this visit to Venice that he

  assisted at a no less interesting ceremony: the unveiling

  of a commemorative tablet to Baldassaro Galuppi, in his

  native island of Burano.

  Goldoni, — good, gay, sunniest of souls, — Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine, — What though it just reflect the shade and shine Of common life, nor render, as it rolls Grandeur and gloom? Sufficient for thy shoals Was Carnival: Parini’s depths enshrine Secrets unsuited to that opaline Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls. There throng the people: how they come and go Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb, — see, — On Piazza, Calle, under Portico And over Bridge! Dear king of Comedy, Be honoured! Thou that didst love Venice so, Venice, and we who love her, all love thee!

  Venice, Nov. 27, 1883.

  A complete bibliography would take account of three other sonnets, ‘The Founder of the Feast’, 1884, ‘The Names’, 1884, and ‘Why I am a Liberal’, 1886, to which I shall have occasion to refer; but we decline insensibly from these on to the less important or more fugitive productions which such lists also include, and on which it is unnecessary or undesirable that any stress should be laid.

  In 1885 he was joined in Venice by his son. It was ‘Penini’s’ first return to the country of his birth, his first experience of the city which he had only visited in his nurse’s arms; and his delight in it was so great that the plan shaped itself in his father’s mind of buying a house there, which should serve as ‘pied-a-terre’ for the family, but more especially as a home for him. Neither the health nor the energies of the younger Mr. Browning had ever withstood the influence of the London climate; a foreign element was undoubtedly present in his otherwise thoroughly English constitution. Everything now pointed to his settling in Italy, and pursuing his artist life there, only interrupting it by occasional visits to London and Paris. His father entered into negotiations for the Palazzo Manzoni, next door to the former Hotel de l’Univers; and the purchase was completed, so far as he was concerned, before he returned to England. The fact is related, and his own position towards it described in a letter to Mrs. Charles Skirrow, written from Venice.

  Palazzo Giustiniani Recanati, S. Moise: Nov. 15, ‘85.

  My two dear friends will have supposed, with plenty of reason, that I never got the kind letter some weeks ago. When it came, I was in the middle of an affair, conducted by letters of quite another kind, with people abroad: and as I fancied that every next day might bring me news very interesting to me and likely to be worth telling to the dear friends, I waited and waited — and only two days since did the matter come to a satisfactory conclusion — so, as the Irish song has it, ‘Open your eyes and die with surprise’ when I inform you that I have purchased the Manzoni Palace here, on the Canal Grande, of its owner, Marchese Montecucculi, an Austrian and an absentee — hence the delay of communication. I did this purely for Pen — who became at once simply infatuated with the city which won my whole heart long before he was born or thought of. I secure him a perfect domicile, every facility for his painting and sculpture, and a property fairly worth, even here and now, double what I gave for it — such is the virtue in these parts of ready money! I myself shall stick to London — which has been so eminently good and gracious to me — so long as God permits; only, when the inevitable outrage of Time gets the better of my body — (I shall not believe in his reaching my soul and proper self) — there will be a capital retreat provided: and meantime I shall be able to ‘take mine ease in mine own inn’ whenever so minded. There, my dear friends! I trust now to be able to leave very shortly; the main business cannot be formally concluded before two months at least — through the absence of the Marchese, — who left at once to return to his duties as commander of an Austrian ship; but the necessary engagement to sell and buy at a specified price is made in due legal form, and the papers will be sent to me in London for signature. I hope to get away the week after next at latest, — spite of the weather in England which to-day’s letters report as ‘atrocious’, — and ours, though variable, is in the main very tolerable and sometimes perfect; for all that, I yearn to be at home in poor Warwick Crescent, which must do its best to make me forget my new abode. I forget you don’t know Venice. Well then, the Palazzo Manzoni is situate on the Grand Canal, and is described by Ruskin, — to give no other authority, — as ‘a perfect and very rich example of Byzantine Renaissance: its warm yellow marbles are magnificent.’ And again — ’an exquisite example (of Byzantine Renaissance) as applied to domestic architecture.’ So testify the ‘Stones of Venice’. But we will talk about the place, ove
r a photograph, when I am happy enough to be with you again.

  Of Venetian gossip there is next to none. We had an admirable Venetian Company, — using the dialect, — at the Goldoni Theatre. The acting of Zago, in his various parts, and Zenon-Palladini, in her especial character of a Venetian piece of volubility and impulsiveness in the shape of a servant, were admirable indeed. The manager, Gallina, is a playwright of much reputation, and gave us some dozen of his own pieces, mostly good and clever. S. is very well, — much improved in health: we walk sufficiently in this city where walking is accounted impossible by those who never attempt it. Have I tired your good temper? No! you ever wished me well, and I love you both with my whole heart. S.’s love goes with mine — who am ever yours Robert Browning.

  He never, however, owned the Manzoni Palace. The Austrian gentlemen* whose property it was, put forward, at the last moment, unexpected and to his mind unreasonable claims; and he was preparing to contest the position, when a timely warning induced him to withdraw from it altogether. The warning proceeded from his son, who had remained on the spot, and was now informed on competent authority that the foundations of the house were insecure.

  * Two or three brothers.

  In the early summer of 1884, and again in 1886, Miss Browning had a serious illness; and though she recovered, in each case completely, and in the first rapidly, it was considered desirable that she should not travel so far as usual from home. She and her brother therefore accepted for the August and September of 1884 the urgent invitation of an American friend, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, to stay with her at a villa which she rented for some seasons at St. Moritz. Mr. Browning was delighted with the Engadine, where the circumstances of his abode, and the thoughtful kindness of his hostess, allowed him to enjoy the benefits of comparative civilization together with almost perfect repose. The weather that year was brilliant until the end of September, if not beyond it; and his letters tell the old pleasant story of long daily walks and a general sense of invigoration. One of these, written to Mr. and Mrs. Skirrow, also contains some pungent remarks on contemporary events, with an affectionate allusion to one of the chief actors in them.